Fair Game Part 4

"Dr. Steven Singh," said the second Homeland agent.

An old-fashioned patriot, Charles informed Anna after exchanging martial arts-style nods with the doctor. He's on record as personally cla.s.sifying the fae and werewolves as domestic terrorists. Charles tended to agree with him. Neither is here because they desire to help catch a serial killer. Pierce won't have anything to add. Singh is smart enough that he might be of use, even though he doesn't care about the crime.

The Cantrip agents were more interesting. He didn't know as much about Cantrip, as it was an even newer agency than Homeland Security, having come into being when the werewolves outed themselves. Though funded and authorized by the government, their role was "to collect and share information about nonhuman and altered-human groups and individuals," which left them a lot of leeway. They had two main offices, one on either coast, and otherwise seemed to travel around the country to concern themselves mostly in criminal cases that involved fae, werewolves, or anything else that looked odd to them.

His father tended to dismiss the Cantrip agents as harmless, since they had no authority to arrest or detain anyone. Charles was less sanguine, as they were one of the government agencies required to go armed at all times-and they carried guns with silver bullets. He had files on a lot of their people, but had decided to see who they sent before refreshing his memory.

The older of the two Cantrip agents tried (and failed) to meet his eyes, then stared rather intently at Anna, which caused Charles's hackles to rise-and Brother Wolf didn't like him much, either.

"Patrick Morris," he said. "Cantrip, special agent."

"Formerly of the FBI," said Ms. Fisher with a cool disapproval that said anyone who chose to leave the FBI was a fool.

"Les Heuter," said the younger man, and abruptly became more interesting.

Heuter is a poster child for Cantrip, Charles told Anna. His father is a senator from Texas. If someone from Cantrip is interviewed in the press, three times out of four it is Heuter. Which was one of the reasons, Charles thought, that people tended not to take Cantrip more seriously.

He should have recognized Heuter right away, but he looked different in person, not as stalwart, impressive, or pretty, but more earnest and likable. He smelled eager, like a hunting dog waiting for the scent. Charles wondered if it was the werewolves or the serial killer that caused the young man's adrenaline rush.

He had a good poker face, though. Charles doubted any of the humans in the room would detect how excited Les Heuter was to be here. Charles had never been human, but he decided it must be like walking around with earplugs and nose plugs in all the time.

Goldstein looked around. "People, let's get the ball rolling." He looked at Charles. "The man who set this meeting up tells me that three werewolves weren't likely to be victims by happenstance. According to him, there just aren't that many werewolves out and about. He speculated that three victims has to mean that our killer is targeting werewolves and suggested we lay out all the victims from the beginning for you, Mr. Smith, and see what you think before I start asking questions. In that light, I'll tell you what we know about this one, and would appreciate anything you can give us."

Charles folded his arms and leaned against the wall, his attention on Anna, telegraphing as loudly as body language could that Anna was in charge.

This was Anna's job-if Charles had to deal with them, they'd likely run scared and start shooting werewolves themselves.

"Who did set this up?" asked Heuter abruptly.

Goldstein turned to look at the younger man and said blandly, "I have no idea. The man who called me didn't identify himself beyond that, just suggested I take notes and his advice. As most of it seemed common sense, I did so."

Bran, thought Anna.

Probably, agreed Charles. Or Adam Hauptman.

Anna met Heuter's gaze and shrugged. "I know who set up our end. I have no idea who set up yours."

Goldstein had taken out his laptop and hooked it up to the video system in the room. He cleared his throat. "Agent Fisher, would you secure the door, please? Some of these images are graphic and I would rather not startle some poor maid."

The door was locked and Goldstein took his gla.s.ses off and cleaned them as Agent Fisher turned off the lights. When he put the gla.s.ses back on, he donned with them the mantle of authority; the faint air of weakness, of age and harmlessness, vanished. For just an instant, Agent Goldstein was a man who hunted other men, then the aura of weakness returned like another man might don a comfortable old shirt.

"We call our UNSUB-" He paused. "That's FBI-speak for 'unknown subject,' which seems a little more professional and less hysterical than 'killer' and more grown-up than 'bad guy.' This UNSUB is known as the Big Game Hunter, because for the first two decades all the kills took place during the traditional hunting season. The first kill we know of was in 1975, though, given the sophistication of the killings, it is likely that he killed earlier than that." He looked at Anna, who must have changed expression, and said, "Yes. We are absolutely certain this killer is a man."

He hit a b.u.t.ton and two pictures came up on the big TV screen, side by side. The first was a school photo of a teenage Asian girl-Chinese, Charles thought. She was smiling gamely at the photographer and there was a bright orange headband in her hair. The second photo was very grainy and showed a naked body, head shrouded in shadows and a white sheet or blanket flung over her hips.

"Karen Yun-Hao was fourteen. She was abducted from her bedroom on..."

Charles let the man's voice drift; he'd remember what Agent Goldstein said later if he needed to. For now he concentrated on the faces, looking for clues, for people he had known, for victims who were pack.

The first year their killer took four girls, each a week apart. Asian and young, none over sixteen or under twelve. He kept them and raped and tortured them until he was ready to take the next victim. The FBI thought he killed one victim just before he took the next-though there was some possible overlap. As soon as hunting season was over, he stopped. The first year was Vermont, the second was Maine, where he stayed for a few years, then Michigan, Texas, and Oklahoma.

Organized, thought Brother Wolf, ratcheting up for the chase. A good hunter took only what he needed when he needed it, and their prey was a good hunter. The killer's victims changed gradually through the years, Asian girls and women and then, in Texas, a teenaged boy who was also Asian. The boy was the first victim who was sodomized, but after him they all were, male and female alike. The next year after that his prey was split two and two, women and boys. Then only boys. After that he added a black teenaged girl.

"It's like he's searching for the perfect meal," said Anna softly-and got an appalled glance from Dr. Singh that Charles didn't think she saw; her attention was fixed on the screen. "He started in 'seventy-five. Maybe he was a Vietnam vet?"

"The Asian victims, yes," said the senior FBI agent, looking even more frail than before. "They weren't all Vietnamese, or even mostly. But some people can't see the difference, or don't care. The police already had that theory before the first time the FBI was brought into it in the early eighties. The UNSUB wouldn't be the only one to come out of that mess with a need to kill."

"'These are the times that try men's souls,'" quoted Anna in a soft voice, and Charles knew she was remembering another veteran warrior.

"It took more than five years for the FBI to get involved?" asked Heuter.

Goldstein gave the Cantrip agent a patient look. "Nearer to ten. First, it took a while for the police to figure out they had a serial killer, communication being what it was. Second, the FBI is not in charge of serial-killer cases. We are support staff, not primary." He hit a b.u.t.ton and a new photo came up.

"Here's where we came in, the FBI-it was before my time. I first hit this case as a rookie in 2000. In 1984, the Big Game Hunter was back in Maine. This is the first victim that year, Melissa Snow, age eighteen."

Charles recognized her-and she hadn't been eighteen. The next victim was a black boy, a stranger. He didn't know the third victim, another Asian girl. This one was ten.

Brother Wolf decided, looking at the delicate joyful face, that they would find the killer and destroy him. Children should be protected. Charles agreed, and the ghosts of the unjustly executed who haunted him withdrew further.

"Those were the only three victims that we found that year, and after this year the number of bodies we found started to vary. In 1986 and '87, we found three bodies. In 1989, there were two. In 1990, three bodies again, and so on until 2000, when several things changed, but I'll get there in a minute. We don't think that he's changed how he kills. That one week interval between the first victim and the next seems pretty set. So we think he began putting the bodies in less accessible places."

In the next year's group of victims, Charles recognized two of the three. He also noted that the crime scene photos were of better quality-a sign of the FBI bringing in a better photographer, he thought, or just a combination of the advance of technology and the way time degraded color film.

Goldstein commented, "In 1984, two of the victims matched our UNSUB's previous victim choice. From 1985 on out, there are no apparent patterns to the victims. Men and women, young and old. He's still kidnapping, raping, and torturing them for a week before going after the next victim." He took his time, showing them each victim's face. Charles noticed that Goldstein never had to consult his notes for the names, and that when he did go to his notes, it was usually to confirm something he'd just said. "The next year he started in September."

Charles knew three of the victims in 1985 and all of the bodies found in 1986.

Stop him, he told Anna, deciding that the killer's victimology was no coincidence. This is important. Go back to that first year, the one the FBI joined in the hunt.

"Wait," Anna said, glancing down at her notes. "Can you go back to the victims in 1984?"

The fae came out about that time, Charles told Anna. Melissa Snow was fae and as close to eighteen as my father is. She wasn't out then, I don't think, but she was fae.

Maybe it was an accident? Anna thought as Melissa's face, shining and happy in a family-type snapshot, appeared on the monitor next to her gray and lifeless face. The fae aren't exactly everywhere, but it is reasonable that he picked one up by mistake.

She wasn't a half-breed, he told her. If someone picked her up thinking they were getting a teenaged human, they'd never have been able to keep her. She wasn't powerful, but she could defend herself better than a human would have.

Can I tell them that?

Absolutely. Then have them go to the next year. Some fae have no bodies when they die. That could be why there is no fourth victim.

Goldstein watched Anna with sharp eyes. "Was she a werewolf?"

"No," Anna said. "Fae." And then she told the feds what Charles had told her.

"Fae." Singh frowned. "How do you know?"

"I'm one of the monsters, Dr. Singh," Anna said without a pause. "We tend to know each other." It wasn't quite a lie. "The question is, how would the-what did you call him? The Big Game Hunter? How would he know what she was? If he attacked her thinking she was human, she'd have escaped."

"I knew the agent who worked this case," said Goldstein. "Melissa had parents and two siblings who were ten and seven at the time. He talked to them. She was eighteen years old."

No parents, Charles told Anna. Or maybe they were fae as well. Or she could have taken her appearance from a dead girl. Hard to say. But I knew her...not well, but well enough to say that she was not eighteen.

Could the victim have been the real Melissa Snow and the fae took her ident.i.ty after she died?

Anna was just covering all the bases, but it was a good question. When had he met Melissa? Years tended to blend into one another...I knew her during Prohibition, she was working at a speakeasy in Michigan-Detroit, I think-but long before the eighties.

"She was fae," Anna said. "If she had parents and siblings, I suspect they were also fae. They know how to blend with society, Agent Goldstein. Apparent age has very little to do with reality when you're dealing with the fae."

"The other two?" Goldstein asked, though he didn't sound convinced.

"I'm not an expert on fae," Anna said. "It's just chance that I recognized Melissa. But there are fae among the victims every year from here on out."

Goldstein asked, "Every year?"

That would account for the lack of bodies, Charles told her. Some of the fae just fade away when they die. If the fae lost his glamour, the other fae would make sure the body never came to light.

"That I've seen."

There was a growing tightness in Goldstein's shoulders, and an eagerness in his scent that told Brother Wolf that Goldstein was thinking, adding this to all of the bits and pieces he knew about the killer, trying to see how this changed the big picture.

Charles considered the repercussions of a serial killer who hunted fae. Surely the Gray Lords would have noticed that someone was killing their people? But they were not Bran, who protected and loved his wolves. If a fae who was not powerful and kept his head down for safety died, would the Gray Lords who ruled the fae even notice? And if they did notice, would they do anything?

"Could the killer be a fae?" That was from Pat, the Cantrip agent. "If he's been killing since 1975 and he was human, he'd be using a wheelchair by now."

Agent Fisher frowned. "I know an eighty-year-old man who could take you with one arm tied behind his back, Pat. And if this guy was eighteen at the end of the Vietnam War, he'd be a lot younger than eighty. But most serial killers don't last this long. They devolve or start making mistakes."

"The Green River Killer hunted for over twenty years," offered Pat. "And when they finally found him, he was a churchgoing married man with two kids and a stable job he'd had for over thirty years."

Goldstein hadn't been listening; he'd been staring at Anna without really looking at her. Thinking.

"I don't think he's fae," he said. "Not our original killer. Why else would he have waited until the fae came out to start killing them?"

Not our original killer, thought Charles to himself.

"I don't know all of the fae personally," said Anna dryly. "Maybe they've been fae all along."

Goldstein shook his head, and Charles agreed with him when he said, "No. This is an escalation of the type of prey the killer hunts."

He's on the scent, said Brother Wolf, watching the older FBI agent with interest.

"Hunting the enemy," said Singh unexpectedly. "Say he's a Vietnam vet. He goes home and sees Vietnamese-or Asian, which is close enough for him-on his territory. So he goes hunting, just like he did in the war. He switches to boys. Maybe it's because he likes s.e.x with boys better-but let's say that it is because he finds them tougher, better hunting. And then he finds the fae-and decides they are more worthy opponents. And, like his original victims, in his eyes they are invaders."

"He's good and he's smart if he's killed this many fae," said Anna. "They tend to be harder to kill than humans. Too bad he didn't pick the wrong one; we'd never find the pieces of his body. I wonder how he managed that."

"He's killed werewolves," said Heuter, unexpectedly. Charles had quit paying attention to the Cantrip spokesperson, dismissing him. "Aren't they harder to kill than the fae?"

Anna shrugged. "I don't run around killing fae, myself. But anything as old as some of them are have a few tricks up their sleeves."

"Melissa Snow died before you were born," said Pat. "How did you know she was fae?" It wasn't what he said, but rather the aggression in his voice, that caused Brother Wolf to take notice that the tenor of the meeting had changed.

"Family photos," Anna shot back, curling her lip. "Or maybe I'm older than I look. Does it matter?"

"You are twenty-five," said Heuter. "Got your photo on my phone and sent it to home base. They got a hit about two minutes ago. Anna Latham from Chicago, mother deceased, father's a hotshot lawyer."

"So how does he know?" murmured Singh, ignoring the Cantrip agent's attack on Anna. "How does he know they aren't human? If they'd been out, someone would have noticed he was killing fae."

A werewolf could scent the fae, most of the time.

"Maybe he had some way of watching while his potential victims touched iron. My Scottish grandmother swore that there were herbal salves you could rub on your eyes to see the fairies," continued Singh, who didn't look as though he could possibly have a Scottish grandmother, though Charles could hardly talk because Charles didn't look very Welsh, either.

"Turning your clothes inside out or wearing cold iron is supposed to work, too," said Fisher, who'd been pretty quiet up to this point. Charles rather thought that she was making sure that the Cantrip agents didn't take control of the meeting again, as she'd spoken just as Heuter opened his mouth to say something else.

"You said 'original killer,'" said Anna to Goldstein, and Charles had to fight to hide his smile. He'd thought she'd missed it, but she was just waiting for the right time to spring it on them. "You don't think we're still dealing with the same man?"

"Right," Goldstein agreed, completely ignoring the Cantrip agents and Singh to focus on the murders. "We noticed some differences in the UNSUB's killings starting about 1995 that seemed to indicate he'd acquired a partner. Then in 2000 the killings took place over six weeks. Though we-2000 is the first year I caught this case-only found five bodies, the timeline indicated that there might be six victims. As there were six the next year, and every year thereafter his killing window has been six weeks instead of four, we're pretty sure that there were six victims in 2000 as well."

"If the MO didn't match, how did you know they were still the Big Game Hunter's victims and not some other killer's?" Singh asked. He was caught up in the hunt for their killer-even though his hunt had started with an entirely different prey: the werewolves. Brother Wolf agreed with Charles's a.s.sessment of Singh: smart and distractible if something more interesting than his current prey ran in front of him.

Goldstein reached into his briefcase and pulled out...a bright yellow ear tag. The kind ranchers staple to their livestock. "He tags his kills. In 'seventy-five he used hunting tags for deer, stolen from a hunting supply store. In 'eighty-two, he switched to this. The current batch can be purchased on the Internet in bags of twenty-five for a buck each."

His prey were things to him, thought Charles. Livestock.

Or he was trying to turn them into things, said Anna. "Let's keep going through the victims and see if we notice anything more that we can help you with."

Goldstein continued his slide show. As forensics had developed, the killer's methods of dealing with the bodies changed. Instead of leaving them to be found in some out-of-the-way place, he put them in water. Rivers, lakes, swamps-and here, in Boston, the Atlantic, trusting the water to wash away his sins, which were many.

"There have been several changes besides his choice and number of victims," said Goldstein. "1991 had several. The torture was more ritualized, and he seemed to place more importance on it. The killings also started to move back a month. From 1975 until 1990, all of the murders happened in November. In 1991, he moved to October. And each year after that, he moved back a month until 1995, when he started killing the first of June-where he is now."

"If you'll give me a list-with photos-of the victims," said Anna, when Goldstein was through, "I'll do my best to see if we can't sort the fae out of the rest. I believe that the first werewolf victims were the ones here in Boston, but I'll be able to tell you that for sure after I make a few calls."

Charles was fairly sure the wolves killed this year were the only ones, but it wouldn't hurt to be certain. Besides, with a list of the victims, he could send them out to a couple of fae he knew who might be able to come up with more information on the fae victims, maybe ID a few more.

"All right," agreed Goldstein. "We can do that."

Anna frowned, one hand rubbing lightly on her chin as she stared at the collage of photos of the current year's victims-five so far. The last one was a school photo of a little boy. One more victim to go before the Big Game Hunter moved on until next year.

"I'm not an expert on the fae," Anna said. "But I know wolves. For a normal man, or even a pair of normal men, to take on a werewolf-that's pretty ambitious. Predators usually pick victims that aren't likely to leave them dead."

Heuter frowned. "He didn't seem to have much trouble with these. Three wolves, right? And no one saw a thing. I don't think it's as hard as you say. Otherwise someone would have noticed."

Anna tipped her head back, meeting Charles's eyes. We're here to advise. To give them information. Should we show them?

Charles moved from behind her to the end of the heavy conference table where no one was sitting. He glanced under it to make sure it wasn't anch.o.r.ed to the floor, then lifted it to his chest height while making sure it stayed level so none of Goldstein's expensive electronics fell off. He set it down.

"Just killing us," Anna said. "That's tough, but it's not impossible. But holding a werewolf while you torture him..."

"Magic?" asked Singh. The Homeland Security agent had totally forgotten that his first intention had been to find out more about the werewolves. Charles found that he liked him-and he hadn't expected to.